Tag Archives: tax

As the inevitable mud slinging and bullshit battle gathers pace ahead of the European referendum on June 23rd, there is one issue I have found increasingly irritating.

My growing annoyance was given further momentum in the wake of the budget and the subsequent, and wholly justified, furore about the Tories plans to mess about with the Personal Independence Payment.

It is, quite simply, the issue of taxation. Not the fact that numerous corporations are somehow allowed to avoid paying it nor the fact that we as individuals have no choice but to pay it, but the way that we, as the public, perceive it. For the reality is that when it comes to the subject of tax, the majority of us are idiots because we fail to grasp, and keep a very firm grip on, one simple fact.

When the press and the government talk about taxpayers, they are talking about us. You and me. Therefore when they talk about taxpayers money, what they are actually talking about is YOUR money, OUR money, MY money.

So the next time you read about the £20,000.000,000 we hand to the EU every year, take a second to think about how much of that is actually yours. Picked from your pocket via income tax, VAT or any of the myriad ways the government have developed to remove your hard earned from your pocket. Then think about where that money could, and should, be better spent.

If you are anything like me, the list will be long and it will be local because I don’t want my taxes propping up the Greek economy or wasted on bizarre projects like ‘Donkeypedia’ (Google it!) I want them spent where they will make a difference to me and the people I care about. That’s why I will be voting to leave on June 23rd. Well, that and security, sovereignty, etc, etc.

However, if you are still in any doubt as to where your own vote might go, if there is a more graphic illustration of the need to leave than the current situation regarding the 5% VAT paid on sanitary products, I can’t think what it is.

The fact that our government has only been allowed to even talk about scrapping this ridiculous tax after a long and protracted spell of grovelling at the feet of the European Parliament is a shame on this once proud nation.

*I wrote this blog in July 2011 and sadly, on the day Mr Osbourne is due to release his latest attempt to decimate the public services that we. the tax payer, actually fund, it seems more pertinent than it did back then. Progress?*
At the top of this page is written the simple phrase “you all know I’m right so look deep inside yourself and summon the courage to admit it.”

Now some people might perceive this as my being slightly arrogant however this is not the case. I use that as a header simply because it is true and the reaction to my previous blog about people making the choice to sponge/steal from the rest of us by living on benefits confirms it. Indeed, not a single person has disagreed with me.

So with that in mind, I’d like to continue along that path just once more. And it will only be the once because to be honest, I’m not sure my blood pressure could stand another bout of thinking about it. You see the other morning as I was listening to some MP or other ranting on about the state of the nation, another benefit related thought struck me. And it was this:

Saddled with the legacy of Labours ridiculous spending policies and a reported £170 billion a year welfare bill, the current government are being forced to make some drastic decisions. The public sector is being decimated with all kinds of people being made redundant (including members of the Armed Forces even though we’re currently engaged in two major conflicts in case anyone had forgotten) whilst the private sector is undergoing seemingly ever increasing hardships as a result of all kinds of exterior pressures ranging from increased fuel prices to the instability of the financial markets.

In short, we’re in the shit and to address it, the entire country is going to have to keep calm and carry on (to coin a phrase).

There is however, one area of the UK economy who have remained immune from what’s been going on and will apparently remain so; the unemployed. For them, that cheque has continued to drop on the mat every fortnight and it will continue to do so irrespective of the cost to the tax payer (that’s you and me).

Now can someone explain to me, how is that right?

I’m not saying for one second that the majority of unemployed men and women wouldn’t give their right arm to be employed or that everyone is

An unemployed man

claiming the dole by choice. That’s not what this is about. This is about fairness pure and simple. When hard working tax-payers are being hammered on an almost daily basis, why are the unemployed not sharing in the nations pain? And how better to do that than to apply an across the board 5% reduction in unemployment benefit.

It makes perfect sense. If the cuts are about saving money then surely the obvious thing to do is to cut back on one of your biggest expenses. Not by sneaking around trying to catch people out but by simply cutting the amount you are paying out. And let’s be brutally honest, a cut in unemployment benefit might surely encourage people to actually take jobs which they have thus far thought of as ‘demeaning’ or too low paid and as a result, put something back into the country too many of them are happily screwing over.

Most importantly of all, it would prove that this government are actually thinking about what’s going on and show the tax-paying British public that when they say that we’re all in this together, they actually mean it. Because to me, at this moment in time, it doesn’t feel like that at all.

Is that being too simplistic? Or is it simply stating the bloody obvious?

PS: I have already had a number of posts agreeing with me and suggesting 5% is a tad too low. 10 if not 15% being closer to what people would like to see together with a time limit for claimants! A nice idea in theory although I’m not sure it would work in practice.

I’d far rather see a programme relating to earning UB such as cleaning up the local community, working with the elderly, etc, etc. Although no doubt the do-gooders of this world would consider this demeaning. Which kind of takes us back to the previous blog!

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